another_someone

The did not clone somebody - they created a cloned human blastocyst, a collection of 50 to 100 cells that is the development of an embryo before it is implanted into the wall of a womb (i.e. beyond that point, they would have had to find a female volunteer to impregnate with the embryo, and they had not reached that point). It certainly could not be said that they created a cloned human being, although there is no doubt that it is an important step in that direction.

another_someone

Clones have never been stable, they always just don't work. I don't think it's possible.

Depends on what you mean by 'stable'.

Life is not stable - that is why we get older, and we die.

The first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep, had a short life of about 6 years, which was half of what her brethren might expect, but certainly this could not be assumed to be a resounding failure.

In 2001 a cat was cloned, and this cat has no given birth to her own kittens (not through cloning but natural fertilisation). The cat still lives (and appears healthy), so it is too early to say if life expectancy has been effected by cloning.

In 2003 a mule horse was cloned, and at present seems healthy (it was cloned from a racing mule horse, and it has already won a number of races).

In total, something like about 17 mammalian species have been cloned.

It is certainly true that cloning is still a high risk business, and the vast majority of attempts at cloning remain unsuccessful, but those occasions where success has been attained do show it is possible to create an apparently healthy clone (although since most of the animals involved are still very young (except maybe for the mice), so it may be argued that we do not yet know the effects of cloning for most of these species for their full lifespan).

another_someone

It's still very hard to clone an animal, and their genomes are much simpler than humans. Most attempted clones don't "take" successfully. Human cloning is still a long way off.

I am not at all sure it is reasonable to say that animal genomes are simpler than human genomes (at least not when one is dealing with higher mammals, such as other primates).

The point is that you are allowed to subject non-human animals to all sorts of things that it would be considered unethical to subject humans to, plus the fact that many animals have much shorter generation time and gestation times, makes it practically and legally easier to do the experiments (most of which still have a low success rate, so have to be done many times just to get one positive result) than it would be to do the experiments with humans.

The Naked Scientists® and Naked Science® are registered trademarks.
Information presented on this website is the opinion of the individual contributors
and does not reflect the general views of the administrators, editors, moderators,
sponsors, Cambridge University or the public at large.